"This is..." Delia began, her voice trailing off as the words died in her mouth. The sheer sha of her wild, scandalous assumptions washed over her, and she could feel a hot blush creeping up her neck. She had imagined a den of indulgence, and instead, she was standing in a business man’s sanctuary.
Eric watched her, a knowing and deeply amused glint in his eyes. He seed to understand everything she had been thinking without her saying a word. "I co here when I have urgent work and require absolute solitude," he explained, his voice calm and even. He strode over to a small table that held several crystal decanters and a set of clean glasses. "I brought you here since you said you needed sowhere private. You sounded like you were proposing a business deal."
He poured water from a glass pitcher into one of the glasses, the clear liquid sparkling in the lamplight. He walked back towards her, his movents smooth and unhurried, and handed her the glass. His eyes danced with amusent as he looked down at her.
"Or," he said, his voice dropping slightly, a smirk playing on his lips, "perhaps this wasn’t what you ant by ’private’, and you had other thoughts in mind?"
He had caught her completely. The blush on her cheeks deepened to a fiery crimson. She was mortified. To hide her embarrassnt, she took the glass from him and took a large, quick sip, the cool water doing little to quell the heat in her face.
"You were the one making uncomfortable," she said, her voice coming out a little defensive, a little flustered. She refused to et his teasing gaze, focusing instead on a particularly thick book on a nearby shelf. "Talking about... about knowing it was my first ti and trying not to be hard on ."
A light, genuine smile touched Eric’s lips. He seed to be thoroughly enjoying her reaction. " Well I thought it’s your first ti proposing marriage and I thought I should go easy on you." He smirked.
He walked back over to his desk and rested against it, crossing his arms over his broad chest. The posture was relaxed, yet it commanded the room. "But thats fair enough," he conceded, his smile lingering.
"So, now that we are in a suitably private setting, why don’t you tell what you were saying earlier? You made a rather bold proposal."
The ntion of her proposal brought Delia back to the present, back to her purpose. This was no ti to be flustered. She had a mission to accomplish. She placed the half-empty glass of water on a small side table with a steady hand, the click of glass on wood sounding decisive in the quiet room. Her panic and embarrassnt began to recede, replaced by a cool wave of confusion.
She walked over to one of the large windows, parting the heavy curtain just enough to look outside. The moon was high and bright, illuminating the peaceful, sleeping forest. An idea, brilliant and fully ford, struck her. She let the curtain fall back into place and turned to face him, a new, confident smile on her face.
"This conversation will be a bit long, Your Grace," she said, her voice now steady and controlled. "Do you have any other plans for tonight?"
Eric watched her, intrigued by her sudden shift in deanor. "No," he answered simply. "The night is yours."
"Good," Delia responded, her smile widening. "Then this conversation will likely take all night."
She began to pace slowly, gathering her thoughts, arranging the pieces of information she had painstakingly acquired. "Your mother, the Duchess, wants you to get married, correct?" she began. "She wants you to settle down, provide an heir, and build your own family. A traditional request for a woman of her standing." She paused, then added the crucial detail. "In return for your cooperation, she has promised to stay out of your personal life and, most importantly, stop pairing you up with eligible young won at every social gathering."
Eric’s relaxed posture shifted slightly. He didn’t say anything, but his eyes narrowed with interest. She had his full attention.
Delia smiled, knowing she was on the right track. She continued, her confidence growing with every word. "But that’s just the icing on the cake, isn’t it? The convenient, public-facing reason. The main benefit, the real leverage she has, is your business."
She stopped pacing and looked directly at him. "The Duchess is not just any duchess. She is the King’s sister. A princess by birth who married your father, a powerful Duke and the commander of her brother’s army. She is royalty through and through."
Eric, who had been leaning against his desk, was now completely captivated. "Continue," he said, his voice a low command.
Delia’s smile was triumphant. "Before she married your father, the Duchess traveled extensively. She was a royal ambassador of sorts. In that ti, she amassed an incredible number of powerful connections across the continent. rchants, guild leaders, foreign nobles, bankers. Connections that you used, very wisely, to take your dye business and expand it into the international powerhouse it is today."
She let that sink in for a mont before delivering the final blow. "She is one of the biggest, though silent, assets involved in your business. And now, she has threatened to cut herself—and all of her powerful connections—off from you entirely if you continue to be, in her words, a ’workaholic’ and refuse to get married."
Eric pushed himself off his desk, his expression a mixture of astonishnt and intrigue. He took a step towards her. "How did you..." he started to ask, his voice filled with disbelief. "How could you possibly know all of that?"
Delia gave him a mysterious smile. "You would be surprised how much information one can get with a few pieces of gold and by listening to the right kind of gossip in the right kind of places," she replied, deliberately vague. It had taken nearly all of her father’s brooch money and a lot of careful questions, but she had pieced it all together.
Eric studied her for a long mont, his mind clearly working. "Not bad," he finally conceded, a note of genuine admiration in his voice.
"So, here is my proposal," Delia said, moving back into the center of the room, taking control of the space. "We fake our marriage. A contract marriage." She laid out her terms, her voice clear and business-like. "You get what you want: your mother is appeased, she stays out of your life, and more importantly, her business connections remain secure. Your empire is safe."
She paused, then added her own terms. "And I get what I want. I won’t pester you or demand your loyalty. Our lives can be entirely separate. You can keep a mistress if you wish, or be with whover you want. I will never interfere with your personal life or your space."
She walked back over to the table that held the decanters, her movents now slow and graceful. She picked up a bottle of deep red wine and poured two glasses, the sound of the liquid filling the silence. She turned, walked back to him, and held out one of the glasses. Their fingers brushed as he took it from her.
She held her own glass up, her eyes locking with his over the rim. "So, Your Grace," she said, her voice a low, compelling whisper. "Are you interested?"
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